I want to know if I can click a button in my XPage and dynamically create a Domino View and then show it in a panel control on the same page. The reason I want to do this is because I have a categorized view and I don't want to lose category data by using full text search. So I am thinking of creating a new view dynamically and pass my search parameters, like end date or start date, into the view selection formula.
Is it possible? Any other alternative solution is also welcome.
yes you can, but you don't want to. A Domino view takes space in the database and quite some time for its first use. So you end up with a lot of views taking space and the need to adjust database space after removal. Your response times will suck big time.
Categories as shown in Notes views are no web interaction pattern, so you might want to solve a problem that actually shouldn't exist.
The preferred method for Domino application is navigation / drill down over search. But you could do a FTSearch where you add your category to the search parameters and render your results in a repeat control instead of a view control. There you have more control over the look and feel.
Whether or not it's the best solution, the answer to the immediate question about creating a view on the fly is yes: the Database class has a couple "createView" methods to allow you to create a new view, either entirely from scratch or based on a named other view. From there, you can use the "setSelectionFormula" and "createColumn" methods in the created View to build what you want. You can't do EVERYTHING with those methods, but it may be enough.
One problem you'd likely run into is ACL access: you'll need Designer rights to the database, which a normal user most likely wouldn't have. If you use the sessionAsSigner object to fetch a signer version of the DB (say, "var signerDB = sessionAsSigner.getDatabase(database.getServer(), database.getFilePath())"), you can work from there. Off the top of my head, I don't remember if you will also have to up the "Maximum Internet access" setting on the last tab of the ACL to Designer as well, but you may.
I am assuming that you are referring to the problem that exists when you choose the documents based on the category. This is something that I find highly annoying and I wish that it was possible to turn this on and off. It makes sense for embedded views, but not for much else.
What I did to solve this was to include the category value in the next column. In this way that text could still be seen, even if it was a flat view.
Alternatively, you could also look into using a repeater control and create your own way of presenting the information. This would be used instead of a (Dynamic)ViewPanel control. You could then present the information any way you wanted as long as it is returned in the viewrow set.
Happy Programming!
